US BMD getting better all the time...

[GhostFox]

I know that reference, but I can't remember from where...

EDIT: is it from one of those cannon games?

You are on the right track. It involved tanks actually.

 

[Sgt_Shellback]

If the US will bring a missile shield to the table, NK won't have anything to balance it with.
NK won't bother trying to negotiate when they have no bargaining power themselves.

First off the missle shield is nothing but theory and doesn't work in practise...

But do you honestly believe that that the right thing to do is allow them a nuclear advantage to keep them from nuking???

 

[GhostFox]

First off the missle shield is nothing but theory and doesn't work in practise...

It's hit sucessful in 5 out of the last 6 tests. Those are fairly good odds. I'll feel better when it works 100% of the time, but I'd take 5/6 over 0 in a heartbeat.

 

[Sgt_Shellback]

It's hit sucessful in 5 out of the last 6 tests. Those are fairly good odds. I'll feel better when it works 100% of the time, but I'd take 5/6 over 0 in a heartbeat.

The tests were Design Expriments... IE variables were kept to the starkest minumum...

They achieved their objective no doubt. But honestly its a ways off.... I'm just being real here. They'll get it if allowed to continue.

Still I support the effort... A strong defense is the best offense.

 

[GhostFox]

But honestly its a ways off

I agree. However I think that the US will have it in good working order before NK has a nuke delivery system that could realistically hit NA. I have no doubt about that.

 

[gh0st]

dont go down that road gh0st, I voted in that election I'll expose your misinformation for what it is

Dont patronize me Stern, I'm not afraid of your googling prowess. Show me how this is wrong

as bombs ripped through their trains. Wake up.

If you deny that it happened, thats great, but your empty threats are almost vomit inducing.

 

[Sgt_Shellback]

I agree. However I think that the US will have it in good working order before NK has a nuke delivery system that could realistically hit NA. I have no doubt about that.

Agreed... They have the range but not the guidance systems.

I'm thinking they have a 30/70 chance of hitting land while aiming at SK, Japan, or the US...

Gyroscopic and inertial nav systems are 1000's of times tougher to design and make then a bomb.

BTW: What does Stern mean he voted in Spains elections???

 

[GhostFox]

BTW: What does Stern mean he voted in Spains elections???

I believe he mentioned previously that his parents were Spanish, so I am assuming he is a spanish citizen.

 

[Sgt_Shellback]

I believe he mentioned previously that his parents were Spanish, so I am assuming he is a spanish citizen.

Ahhhh... Thank you.

 

[CptStern]

i have dual citizenship

 

[Razor]

Door #2 is a terrorist group delivering a nuke on a container ship or such. Why it is theoretically possible for this to happen at any time, experts in counter terrorism usually say that it will be decades before nuclear technology is at the point where individual groups will have realistic access to it.

Absolute and utter rubbish, countries like North Korea, Iran, Syria, etc, don't need to be able to develope nuclear weapons for terrorists to get hold of them, you just think about all the ex-Soviet nuclear warheads that might have been "misplaced" over the years. Think about it, you're an ex-Soviet commander incharge of a silo, you have a wife and kids at home starving, you haven't been paid any wages for the past 5 years, your base has fallen into major disrepair and is minimally staff and you could sell a nuclear warhead for $5,000,000 to Al Quada...what do you do? It isn't that difficult to think up that scenerio, and it isn't just pure fiction done by Tom Clancy.

The missile defence system, unless it is space based and can take out the icbm's as they reach orbit and before they can re-enter the atmosphere, it isn't feasible. When you have a system that can only hit 5/6 targets in very strict and control environments, how do you think it is going to handle against an icbm with 10 250kiloton warheads onboard, plus 10 - 15 decoys, plus debris from the missile stages falling to Earth, etc, etc? It isn't going to do very well, and a large proportion of missiles will still get through.

For a nuclear defence shield to work, it needs to be multilateral and multinational and automated. We're talking about a defence system that spans all the major cities in the world, including China, Russia, South Africa, Australia, England, America, Canada, etc, and it needs to shoot down all icbms.

 

[Sprafa]

The USA payed the salaries for the Ruskies not to fall in temptation.

They also covered disamament, etc. It's more to their interest anyways

 

[kirovman]

Absolute and utter rubbish, countries like North Korea, Iran, Syria, etc, don't need to be able to develope nuclear weapons for terrorists to get hold of them, you just think about all the ex-Soviet nuclear warheads that might have been "misplaced" over the years. Think about it, you're an ex-Soviet commander incharge of a silo, you have a wife and kids at home starving, you haven't been paid any wages for the past 5 years, your base has fallen into major disrepair and is minimally staff and you could sell a nuclear warhead for $5,000,000 to Al Quada...what do you do? It isn't that difficult to think up that scenerio, and it isn't just pure fiction done by Tom Clancy.

The missile defence system, unless it is space based and can take out the icbm's as they reach orbit and before they can re-enter the atmosphere, it isn't feasible. When you have a system that can only hit 5/6 targets in very strict and control environments, how do you think it is going to handle against an icbm with 10 250kiloton warheads onboard, plus 10 - 15 decoys, plus debris from the missile stages falling to Earth, etc, etc? It isn't going to do very well, and a large proportion of missiles will still get through.

For a nuclear defence shield to work, it needs to be multilateral and multinational and automated. We're talking about a defence system that spans all the major cities in the world, including China, Russia, South Africa, Australia, England, America, Canada, etc, and it needs to shoot down all icbms.

As I read on the nuclear weapons archive website and other sources, knowledge of building a weapon is not the main obstacle, it is the access to materials to build the weapon that is the problem. And making a high yield weapon is complicated.
I am sure some terrorist organisations have access to fanatical nuclear scientists and engineers, but procurement of materials will be a problem for them for at least 20 years, or so they say.

 

[Sprafa]

it's extremely hard to make a nuclear weapon alone with limited funding.... Nations like Japan could take a few months to make one, a lone terrorist would take years. They'll rely on good ol' car bombing for a while.

 

[Calanen]

I think the idea for the missile defence is to have auto response, so target identify missiles and auto launch to intercept. You cant do that with passenger aircraft, for obvious reasons. While jumbos may have a legitimate reason to be in the airspace, a ballistic missile never does.

 

[Bodacious]

Death's head is in referecne to a tank game called Scorched Earth. I think.

 

[GhostFox]

Death's head is in referecne to a tank game called Scorched Earth.

We've got a winner. I love that game. Death's Heads were MIRV's with double the warheads. Good Stuff.

 

[kirovman]

I think the idea for the missile defence is to have auto response, so target identify missiles and auto launch to intercept. You cant do that with passenger aircraft, for obvious reasons. While jumbos may have a legitimate reason to be in the airspace, a ballistic missile never does.

You'd have to have someone overseeing it and evaluating potential threats. It would have an auto-threat analysis obviously though.

I don't like the idea of a system glitch that mistakes my flight for an ICBM (for whatever reason) and automatically shoots me down.

And for the future you can start to question flights which change course drastically (eg 9/11 planes doing 360 turns and flying back to NY) without prior permission and without radio response.
Get a military escort or something.

Introduce some aviation rules that say if military planes come to escort you, you must follow them or be shot down (this sort of solves radio malfunctioning issues).

Although there are lots of factors that make that easy for me to say this, but a lot harder to implement, and the details need to be carefully analysed.

 

[K e r b e r o s]

It seems like a big waste of money that could probably better spent nation building for the worlds poor ..but instead we throw our money away on "perceived threats" When's the last time a ballastic missle was aimed at america? I thought it was a war on terrorism? you dont need missle defense shields to ward off terrorists. 9/11 proved low tech can produce results

Umm, not low-tech, just simple. Further, lets review what it was effective against: Civilians.

 

[kmack]

Great, I must say I don't feel that much safer. Most tests the device fails, i believe its only success has been at sea, not on land. As long as we all move to the Ocean we can be safe. This is a waste of money, it's not the cold war anymore, and becuase of the immense speed of weapons there is too much that can go wrong.

 

[K e r b e r o s]

No. I say we keep our missle systems. The only reason why people dont want us to have them, is because then they're missle attack attempts at us, might fail.

 

[Gray Fox]

By Ghost:

Thanks for admitting that bush is right

By the way, the United States' GDP dwarfs your whole continents, lets not get to talking about third world countries here.

I see you're knowledge of geography is like bushes, besides even if it does it just proves my point even more, you may have a higher GDP, but when most of the wealth is in the hands of a few, most of the nation is like a third wolrd country, gdp means nothing, Saudia Arabia has a relativly higher gdp than most western countries, but most of it's citizen life in deep shit. Hell the US has more teen birthrates than bangladesh, just showes you when you spend 590 billion on defense there is not much money left for your citizens.

Im sure you all were talking as arrogantly as you do now as you did before WW2... or WW1, living in peace wiith everybody... what a crock of shit.

WTF do oyu peopel actually get thought history or just propaganda, casue actuall europe was not living in peace with anyone, we had much more kapitalistic oriented system than now, similar to the US, and we had a lot of colonies that we conquered with the excuse that we were bringing civilization to the colonies, when infact we were just after their recources, does that remind you of anything that happend recently. But we learned from that, you on the other hand are to dumb to do the same.

I'm sure Spain was thinking that too as bombs ripped through their trains. Wake up.
Spains government supported the war in Iraq, they knew what they were getting their country in. Nobody was very surprized by the bombings.

Anyway, the more missile defense the better. I doubt this will inspire an attack by NK, because I view them as more of a bargaining tool for NK. I think we are totally justified in this.

Well the way your going now, you're going to need it. Hope it really works for you.

 

[K e r b e r o s]

It should.

If we stop all of North Korea's missles, will Europe fire theres (Nukes) too?

 

[GhostFox]

I see you're knowledge of geography is like bushes, besides even if it does it just proves my point even more, you may have a higher GDP, but when most of the wealth is in the hands of a few, most of the nation is like a third wolrd country, gdp means nothing, Saudia Arabia has a relativly higher gdp than most western countries, but most of it's citizen life in deep shit.

Your claims are based on what exactly? The US has the highest GDP per capita in the world (excluding Luxembourg which is just a tax shelter for rich people) at $37,800 per person. The Netherlands for example is much lower are $28,600. Saudi Arabia, which you claim has such a high GDP, is down at $11,800. The reason most of it's citizens lives are "deep shit" as you so colorfully put it is because SA is a freakin 3rd world country. If your definition of the west is Mexico, then I guess you are right. But if you are talking about US, Canada and Europe you are insane.

Hell the US has more teen birthrates than bangladesh, just showes you when you spend 590 billion on defense there is not much money left for your citizens.

First of all, care to back up the Bangladesh claim? Second of all, part of the reason the US teen birthrate is so high compared to European countries is because the US is actually growing. Europe is shrinking. The US has the highest population growth rate of any industrialized nation. Also, the studies make no distinction between married teens having a family and 15 yr olds getting pregnant at a party.

 

[Razor]

Your claims are based on what exactly? The US has the highest GDP per capita in the world (excluding Luxembourg which is just a tax shelter for rich people) at $37,800 per person. The Netherlands for example is much lower are $28,600. Saudi Arabia, which you claim has such a high GDP, is down at $11,800. The reason most of it's citizens lives are "deep shit" as you so colorfully put it is because SA is a freakin 3rd world country. If your definition of the west is Mexico, then I guess you are right. But if you are talking about US, Canada and Europe you are insane.



First of all, care to back up the Bangladesh claim? Second of all, part of the reason the US teen birthrate is so high compared to European countries is because the US is actually growing. Europe is shrinking. The US has the highest population growth rate of any industrialized nation. Also, the studies make no distinction between married teens having a family and 15 yr olds getting pregnant at a party.

When you say "highest population growth rate" are you factoring in Immigration, America must have a huge number of immigrants every year. The British population would be shrinking or the same, if it wasn't for immigration.

 

[GhostFox]

When you say "highest population growth rate" are you factoring in Immigration, America must have a huge number of immigrants every year. The British population would be shrinking or the same, if it wasn't for immigration.

The US does have huge immigration (illegal aliens alone count for more then 11 million US residents, with another approx. 1 million more arriving every year, nevermind the legal immigrants) but I was not including immigration, only fertillity rates. US bithrates result in 4 million births every year, while there are only 2.4 million deaths. A net gain of 1.6 million. However, as you mentioned the US has a large amount of immigration, adding about 2 million legal immigrants on top of that figure every year. So the US population grows much faster then the birthrate suggests. A stable birthrate is mesured at 2.1 births, above that you gain population, below that you lose population. For comparison the European average is roughly 1.4.

 

[gh0st]

I see you're knowledge of geography is like bushes, besides even if it does it just proves my point even more, you may have a higher GDP, but when most of the wealth is in the hands of a few, most of the nation is like a third wolrd country, gdp means nothing, Saudia Arabia has a relativly higher gdp than most western countries, but most of it's citizen life in deep shit. Hell the US has more teen birthrates than bangladesh, just showes you when you spend 590 billion on defense there is not much money left for your citizens.

I see "you're" knowledge of the real world is like nonexistent. You talk about "Saudia Arabia" like you know the place. Ever been there? Thats an actual ****ing third world country. More relevant than your post, however, is your atrocious spelling and grammar. Makes me wonder what kind of schools you have over there. Like was said earlier, "Saudia Arabias" gdp ISNT high. YOU are full of shit my friend. The US has more teen birthrates than bangladesh. Great. What an irrelevant, uninteresting factoid. I'm a citizen of the US and theres plenty of money for me, I dont know what youre talking about: oh wait, you have never been here, and have no idea what its like. Keep listening to commondreams, keep pretending they are reality.

WTF do oyu peopel actually get thought history or just propaganda, casue actuall europe was not living in peace with anyone, we had much more kapitalistic oriented system than now, similar to the US, and we had a lot of colonies that we conquered with the excuse that we were bringing civilization to the colonies, when infact we were just after their recources, does that remind you of anything that happend recently. But we learned from that, you on the other hand are to dumb to do the same.

I dont know what kind of history YOU were "thought" but I was taught that WW1 and WW2 occured in Europe. Me saying Europe was not living in peace with anyone is exactly what I was saying. You are just spewing what I said right back at me. HAHAHA you were more "kapitalistic" before capitalism was popular! Nice! Try Mercantlistic. If you want to talk about conquering the innocent heathens of the world, maybe you should look in the mirror. Europes colonies were THE WORST in conditions, they were SHITHOLES. When things get tough you simply leave them to their own devices (Vietnam) and leave their shit in ruin. More than anybody Europe has raped the third world into nothingness. Your petty squabbles over colonies are not even comparable to the minute quanity of Americas colonies. Im beginning to think you dont even know history. Honestly, your posts are just pure bullshit, dont even try.

Spains government supported the war in Iraq, they knew what they were getting their country in. Nobody was very surprized by the bombings.

Wow. Great. So now supporting America is bad because you will get attacked? God what a bunch of pussies. Im sure Spain was about as surprised as we were on 9/11. You are just so full of shit it makes my head hurt. No wonder you dont support America, you are all just too cowardly to stand up to criminals and headcutters.

 

[Gray Fox]

By ghostFox:

First of all, care to back up the Bangladesh claim? Second of all, part of the reason the US teen birthrate is so high compared to European countries is because the US is actually growing. Europe is shrinking. The US has the highest population growth rate of any industrialized nation. Also, the studies make no distinction between married teens having a family and 15 yr olds getting pregnant at a party.

Well unfortunatly you got me there with the proof. The only proof I got is unfortunately from 2001 and from a organisation that you and a lot of US folks don’t trust. So there is not much point in that, but if you must know where I got it from, here is the link
http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/repcard3e.pdf

And for anyone interested there are more links, but this is not just about the US it’s about a lot of countries, so anybody that finds this credible information source should take a look.

http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/repcard2e.pdf
http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/repcard5e.pdf
http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/repcard1e.pdf
http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/repcard4e.pdf

By GhostFox:

I dont know what kind of history YOU were "thought" but I was taught that WW1 and WW2 occured in Europe. Me saying Europe was not living in peace with anyone is exactly what I was saying. You are just spewing what I said right back at me. HAHAHA you were more "kapitalistic" before capitalism was popular! Nice! Try Mercantlistic. If you want to talk about conquering the innocent heathens of the world, maybe you should look in the mirror. Europes colonies were THE WORST in conditions, they were SHITHOLES. When things get tough you simply leave them to their own devices (Vietnam) and leave their shit in ruin. More than anybody Europe has raped the third world into nothingness. Your petty squabbles over colonies are not even comparable to the minute quanity of Americas colonies. Im beginning to think you dont even know history. Honestly, your posts are just pure bullshit, dont even try.

You're right, more than anybody we have raped the world, and we have learned from it, you haven't and are doing the exact same thing we did in that time.

I see "you're" knowledge of the real world is like nonexistent. You talk about "Saudia Arabia" like you know the place. Ever been there? Thats an actual ****ing third world country. More relevant than your post, however, is your atrocious spelling and grammar. Makes me wonder what kind of schools you have over there. Like was said earlier, "Saudia Arabias" gdp ISNT high. YOU are full of shit my friend. The US has more teen birthrates than bangladesh. Great. What an irrelevant, uninteresting factoid. I'm a citizen of the US and theres plenty of money for me, I dont know what youre talking about: oh wait, you have never been here, and have no idea what its like. Keep listening to commondreams, keep pretending they are reality.

Now you type all what you have said in Dutch/ Bosnian and we'll talk about schools then.

Wow. Great. So now supporting America is bad because you will get attacked? God what a bunch of pussies. Im sure Spain was about as surprised as we were on 9/11. You are just so full of shit it makes my head hurt. No wonder you dont support America, you are all just too cowardly to stand up to criminals and headcutters.

No we're not, by standing up against the US we are actually standing up against crminals.

 

[Chris D]

Alright, cool it off or the thread gets closed and people get warned.

 

[seinfeldrules]

No we're not, by standing up against the US we are actually standing up against crminals.

While you support people like Saddam and North Korea. Man, you really are showing the criminals!

 

[CptStern]

Dont patronize me Stern, I'm not afraid of your googling prowess. Show me how this is wrong
If you deny that it happened, thats great, but your empty threats are almost vomit inducing.

you would use it and twist it for your own gain, trying to justify the war on terror by implying that countries are in danger because of terrorism when just the opposite is the true. Madrid bombing happened BECAUSE of the war in iraq

oh and some of you are really really bad when it comes to veiled insults, they just come across as childish rather than scathing or acerbic

 

[Lemonking]

I still say we should use lasers!

we shall call it teh" Deathstar" :E
btw yes good news

 

[GhostFox]

Madrid bombing happened BECAUSE of the war in iraq

Oh please. To believe it was anything more then a convienent excuse you have to be a fool.

 

[Viperidae]

we shall call it teh" Deathstar" :E

No, the Deathticle.

No one would dare attack us with a name like that!

 

[CptStern]

Oh please. To believe it was anything more then a convienent excuse you have to be a fool.

do you have anything to back yourself up? Are you saying madrid was targeted because of other motives besides the war in iraq?

 

[GhostFox]

do you have anything to back yourself up?

Logic, something the Spanish voters apparently lacked.

 

[CptStern]

once again you reveal your ignorance .. Zapatero had the popular vote long before the bombing

 

[GhostFox]

once again you reveal your ignorance .. Zapatero had the popular vote long before the bombing

I've seen conflicting reports on that, and either way it was fairly close. PSOE's eventual majority was quite small.

I just think that once the bombing occured the voters probably should have gone the other way, as Zapatero's platform on protecting Spain is pretty much one of hiding his head in the sand.

 

[CptStern]

I've seen conflicting reports on that, and either way it was fairly close. PSOE's eventual majority was quite small.

I just think that once the bombing occured the voters probably should have gone the other way, as Zapatero's platform on protecting Spain is pretty much one of hiding his head in the sand.

it was the first time in spanish history that an absolute majority government lost the election.... I think that pretty much illustrates how "fairly close" it was :upstare:

and no voters would NOT have gone the other way as Zapatero had been running on the same platform from the very beginning. Rajoy was not well liked, and Popular had fallen from graces since the very onset of the war as the majority of spaniards (74%) were against spanish involvement.

 

[GhostFox]

Back on track, do you honestly believe that Spain was attacked simply for participating in the Iraq war?

To me that logic is like this:

I spent the last month planning to burn your house down.
Yesterday you hit my cousin's (whom I hate) lawn ornament with your car.
Today I burn down your house.

Ergo, I burned down your house because you hit my cousin's lawn ornament.